South Florida benefited from Biden’s rich infrastructure legacy | Opinion

As President Joe Biden steps out of the 2024 presidential race, let’s first recognize his achievements and celebrate his infrastructure legacy – not only for the nation but for Florida, particularly Miami and South Florida.

The Biden-Harris administration will be remembered as the catalyst for the Infrastructure Decade, a transformative era that reignited a national commitment to rebuilding and revitalizing our crumbling infrastructure.With a sweeping vision transcending party lines and state borders, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spearheaded a comprehensive overhaul unmatched since the Dwight Eisenhower administration built the Interstate Highway System.

This infrastructure overhaul has significantly benefited Floridians. The $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invested $2.7 billion to modernize Florida’s roads, bridges, public transit, ports, and airports, including $777 million to improve the state’s water infrastructure, with $366.4 million allocated to removing lead pipes throughout the state.

However, we must also consider the path forward and what the next four years will mean for Florida’s programs and priorities, particularly the most urgent: the state’s transportation challenges and the pressing need to make infrastructure and the economy resilient to climate change, or as state law now describes it, “natural threats.”

The federal transportation investment was a crucial response to a statewide road system overwhelmed by tourism and population growth. This effort was further supported by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who launched a state multi-billion-dollar transportation initiative.

Such bipartisan support has been a hallmark of Biden’s tenure, though Floridians should note that every Republican in the state’s congressional delegation – in both the Senate and the House – voted against the infrastructure bill.

Perhaps the most significant program for Floridians is the $1.1 billion in funding provided under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the Everglades Restoration Plan and its centerpiece, the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir.

This restoration and the reservoir project aim to avert a major catastrophe in the Everglades, where “natural threats” and decades of sugar industry pollution threaten the ecosystem and the economy.

The reservoir is a 50-50 state/federal program budgeted at $3.4 – $3.5 billion. It has generated bipartisan support, uniting the Biden Administration, major advocacy groups like the Everglades Foundation, and the state’s leading Republicans, including Gov. DeSantis and Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.

These initiatives are major accomplishments and must be recognized as such. But will they continue? And will they last? For Florida, as for the nation, the answer largely depends on the election's outcome. If Project 2025, the 900-page manifesto and governing blueprint for a second Trump term developed by the Heritage Foundation, is taken at its word, the programs and federal agencies that support and manage the development of all that critical infrastructure will be dismantled.

Project 2025 is hostile to such programs and recommends pushing all federal highway funding to states. This will put tremendous financial pressure on states, causing significant increases in tolls for Florida drivers, already the state with the most toll roads.

Under a Harris administration, federal support will certainly continue, but even then, it is unlikely that we will see anything resembling the Biden Administration’s scale of ambition or investment again.

There is neither the funding nor, in a polarized environment, the political will to support such initiatives – not with the U.S. budget deficit at $1.27 trillion and the national debt at a near record 123% of GDP. However, combining federal support with private capital in the form of Public Private Partnerships (P3) could be a solution. Florida has already started in that direction.

A new Florida law opens the door wider to public-private partnerships, and the state has begun to take a public-private partnership approach to water systems, which, according to the ASCE, will require $22 billion in capital investments in the coming decade. P3 should also be used for the expansion and renovation of our airports, similar to New York City’s multi-billion-dollar renovation of LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy.

For Floridians – facing strained infrastructure and severe “natural threats” pressure – the 2024 election will determine the future of the state’s essential systems and economic prospects.

Understanding the stakes and consequences for Florida and the nation is the best way to ensure that Florida’s infrastructure future is secure.

Sadek Wahba is chairman and managing partner of Miami-based I Squared Capital, an independent global infrastructure investment manager. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Build: Investing in America’s Infrastructure,” published by Georgetown University Press.

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